There have been image forming systems in which plural image forming apparatuses are tandemly-arranged, that is, one image forming apparatus forms an image on a partial area of a recording sheet, and then said recording sheet is introduced to other image forming apparatus, whereby another image is formed on the remaining area of the recording sheet by said other image forming apparatus.
According to said image forming systems, one of two image forming apparatuses can form an image on the front side, and another image forming apparatus can form an image on the reverse side, so that said systems can form images at high speed on both sides, which is advantageous. Further, said two apparatuses form images, while using different colored toner. Still further, one image forming apparatus forms an image on a character forming area, while the other image forming apparatus forms an image on a picture forming area, that is, both apparatuses can form images using their assigned image forming areas, whereby very precise image formation can be conducted.
Said image forming systems, using plural image forming apparatuses, have been detailed in Patent Documents listed below.    Patent Document 1: JPA 2000-32186    Patent Document 2: JPA 2006-340259    Patent Document 3: JPA H11-313181
According to an image forming system disclosed in Patent Document 1, said image forming system includes a printing device with which a scanning device is combined, so that an operation section of each device is independently used at the same time. Accordingly, said system does not include plural image forming apparatuses, being the same kind of apparatuses, to be combined with each other.
According to an image forming system disclosed in Patent Document 2, said image forming system includes plural image forming apparatuses to be combined with each other, whereby one image forming apparatus has a display screen on which plural reduced-size images, displayed on display screens of other image forming apparatuses, are totally arranged. However, said display screen has problems with visibility. Further, said display screen displays the same portions, which is wasteful. As a result, said image forming system cannot offer adequate information, and cannot determine situations of the plural image forming apparatuses, which is a problem.
According to an image forming system disclosed in Patent Document 3, said image forming system obtains the status from other image forming apparatuses, and displays said status. However, said image forming system cannot show adequate information, and cannot comprehend situations of the plural image forming apparatuses, which is a problem.
Further, according to current image forming systems, in which plural image forming apparatuses are tandemly-arranged, said system uses an operation display section of a master image forming apparatus, to control other image forming apparatuses, being slave image forming apparatuses. In this case, the total operational inputs and conditional displays are conducted through the operation display section of the master image forming apparatus, while the operation display sections of the slave image forming apparatuses are not used. Accordingly, as the total image forming system, said image forming system cannot show adequate information, and cannot comprehend situations of the plural image forming apparatuses, which is a problem.
As detailed above, if the image forming system cannot show adequate information, and cannot comprehend situations of the plural image forming apparatuses, operations of plural image forming apparatuses become unclear, which is a major problem.
The present invention has been achieved to overcome the above problems. An object of the present invention is to realize an image forming system and image forming apparatuses which are tandemly-arranged, being able to form images while dividing areas on the front side or the reverse side or on a single side, of a recording sheet, whereby conditions of plural image forming apparatuses in the image forming system are easily obtained, and said image forming apparatuses are easily operated.